Part of a villainous stock phrase that usually goes "When I Take Over the World, you will be spared." The other variations are "I think I'll kill you last" and "Your death will be quick and painless."

Usually, the villain will make this promise to anyone who helps him, or to someone they feel indebted to, are friends with, or are in love with. If the villain really likes this person, expect them to sweeten the deal with a Shiny New Australia. This is generally played for laughs, since few "realistic" villains are quite so egomaniacal that they bandy out the lives of others this way.

If said to a hero, it may because they're Friendly Enemies. An Omnicidal Maniac may either express a desire to preserve one person or event that they like, or say that it's the one thing they'll miss after destroying the world. If they believe the person or people they spare have some sort of Uniqueness Value, that's Sparing The Aces.

An alternative reason for a villain to invoke this trope is to leave behind a witness to tell of their misdeed, intending for it to have a demoralizing effect on the villain's enemies.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

For Baccano!'s Ladd Russo and Lua Klein, nothing says love like "I'll kill you last." Ladd also says something along those lines to Graham Spectre ("No, I won't...I like brazen and impudent guys that only I'm able kill"), at which point Graham starts fanboying him like nobody's business.

In Aura Battler Dunbine, when the bad guys arrive on Earth announce their plan to conquer it, they say they will spare the city of Boston out of respect for one of their pilots who came from there.

In Claymore, the freshly resurrected and awakened Hysteria says that she'll spare any Claymore who removes the sword from her neck. One steps up and does so, and she keeps her word, avoiding that Claymore while slaughtering the rest. Also a prime example of Even Evil Has Standards.

Ultimate Spider-Man - Peter and Kitty Pryde hit the mall on their first date and joke about the modern miracle that is the corn-dog on a stick. Kitty quips that when the mutants take over the world, the inventor of the corn-dog will be spared. She has to explain she was kidding when Peter looks nervous. Little did they know....

In the Death Note fic To Feel Alive Ryuk says this to Light, promising that his death would be quick and painless—much to Light's annoyance.

Shouldn't he be grateful that he wasn't planning on giving him a painful, lingering death?

This occurs in Heir (a Dark!Harry fic where Harry was raised by the horcrux in his head) when Harry and Tom are choosing victims to be petrified by the basilisk they are so impressed with the muggleborn Hermione Granger that they decide to spare her and move on to a new target.

Films

In the B-Movie Evil Alien Conquerors, said conquerors tell a normal human, when he helps them, that he will die painlessly. It's something of a Running Gag, to the point that he eventually waves them off with a parting "Die painlessly" to theirs.

In Coneheads, this is what Mr. Conehead says to the woman who sabotages her driving exam in an attempt to start an affair with him. He won't sleep with her, but promises she'll be on the protected list once his people invade.

In the first film, Megatron makes the offer to Sam: "Give me the Allspark, and you may live to be my pet."

Becomes a major plot point in the third film. Carly's boss Dylan, and some of his associates, are the descendents of humans who worked for NASA when the Ark was discovered on the moon. To ensure that no other human learned of this, Soundwave and Laserbeak forced NASA's employees to keep quiet about the discovery, lest they be killed off. Dylan turns out to be one of the few humans chosen to be spared after the Decepticons enslave humanity, possibly to work as a liaison between the 'Cons and the human slaves. It's also revealed that the various deaths in history related to NASA were Soundwave and Laserbeak getting rid of "loose ends."

Anti-Hero-ic version in Blade II. Blade gets information out of a Vampire Mook, saying, "Tell me what I want to know, and I'll consider you as a loose end." The Mook spills the beans, and Blade actually lets him get away, even when he runs into him again later on. Of course, at the very end, Blade catches up to the guy in a sleazy porn theater about three countries away: "Well, you didn't think I forgot about you did you? <Brain-stab>"

At the end of the director's cut of the third Riddick movie, Riddick confronts Krone as he's praying in the Lord Marshal's private chambers, having taken up Riddick's former post after betraying Riddick and leaving him for dead. Riddick promises to kill Vaako first and Krone second if he tells him where he can find Vaako. Krone launches into a long-winded rant instead of answering him, prompting Riddick to kill him ahead of schedule.

Ur Example: In The Odyssey, when Odysseus gives his name to the Cyclops as "Noman", the Cyclops says that he will eat "Noman" last out of thanks for giving him the wine. (It may or may not have been the giant's sick idea of a joke.) This also doubles as a kick the dog moment to make him evil enough that the audience can enjoy him getting brutally blinded later. Capturing, enslaving and killing intruders wouldn't make him particularly bad in the eyes of Homer's audience (eating them is a bit over the top, though). Deliberately insulting the holy laws of hospitality by expressly making this Odysseus' "guest gift" is sacrilege though, and that's a completely different matter.

Bagheera does this in the Book of the Jungle by Kipling. During the water peace (when he is not allowed to hunt) he absent-mindedly says he wishes he could eat grass. A young animal from one of his prey species quips: "So do we". Everybody laughs and Bagheera makes an effort to memorize this animal's appearance so he can remember not to eat the animal that made him laugh next time they meet.

A rare heroic version in Robert A. Heinlein's Have Space Suit – Will Travel: just before Humanity on Trial, Kip is assured that he and Pee-wee will be allowed to live out their lives. Kip asks that they be returned to Earth if humanity loses, which may have been a factor in deciding to spare humanity for now — although they intend to re-evaluate later.

Inverted by Virigar the Werewolf King in Ryk E. Spoor's Digital Knight, when he tells Jason Wood, "I'm minded to let you live for a while.... So you will suffer all the more while everything you value is destroyed before your very eyes!"

In Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter the main vampire—though not exactly a villain—would say, every time he and Abraham Lincoln met, and he didn't kill him—or the vampire would save him—he'd ask why and the vampire would say "Some people are just too interesting to kill." Then in the end, when Abraham Lincoln died and the vampire brought him back as a vampire himself, he said, "Some people are just too interesting to let die."

In Goblet of Fire, Voldemort tells Harry that if he surrenders, his death will be quick, and possibly painless.

I do not know... I have never died.

After bumping Lily and her family to top of Voldemort's hit list, Severus Snape begged him to spare her (though not James, who he hated, or Harry, who was Voldemort's primary target and had no chance of being spared), in part due to his unrequited love for her. It almost worked; Voldemort did offer Lily the chance to step aside, but since she insisted on protecting Harry, he ended up killing her anyway.

Another Older Than Feudalism heroic one is in The Bible-Rahab is told that she and her family will be spared after hiding the Hebrew spies from the soldiers of Jericho.

Live-Action TV

Friends has this exchange from Phoebe: When the revolution comes, I will have to destroy you all... except you, Joey.

On Supernatural, the demons assisting Lucifer will be killed as soon as Lucifer is finished with the humans and angels if not sooner. Any demon caught assisting Team Free Will will be granted immortalityinstead.

LOST inverts the "I'll kill you last" variety. Said by Ethan to Charlie, this is a threat: Charlie will see all his friends die before he's killed.

"What They Died For" plays it straight with the Man in Black offering to spare Penny if Widmore tells him what he needs to know.

Young Dracula: Ingrid tells her therapist this after the therapist helps her get past her Villainous BSOD. The therapist believes that her ability to make such jokes is a good sign.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6: While drowning sorrows and bemoaning their (lack of) love lives together, Spike tells Anya that she's the only one he wouldn't bite if he didn't have his Restraining Bolt. He respects women who say exactly what's on their minds (even if they happen to be off their rocker like Drusilla).

The first scene of the Blade pilot subverts the trope after Blade chases down a vampire in Russia and acquires some information from him at swordpoint.

Doctor Who: In "The Waters of Mars", The Doctor meets a woman in 2059 whom he knows is critically important to history. She reveals that the reason she's in space is because she was spared by a Dalek during their invasion of Earth fifty years earlier. She never knew why, but The Doctor knows that it's because of her importance to the future; she's a "fixed point in time", and even the Daleks know better than to mess with those.

In the last season of Breaking Bad, Jack and his crew spare Walter and Jesse for very different reasons.

In Person of Interest, Root tells her psychiatrist she's deciding whether or not to kill him. She ultimately decides to spare him, thus playing the trope straight.

In the Haven episode "Speak No Evil", Mara tricks Vickie into helping her open a portal to another dimension. Mara says as thanks, she will spare her life once she gets what she needs, comes back, and basically conquers the world. When the portal closes before she can pass through, Mara angrily shoots Vickie with a taser, but doesn't kill her.

Theatre

How Alquist ended up as the last human in R.U.R. After the robots took over the factory he was dragged before the one in charge, the usually human hating Radius, who took one look at him and told the other robots to leave him be because 'he works with his hands like a robot'.

Saren attempts to invoke this in Mass Effect by making organics useful to the Big Bad. Even though the whole point of what they were trying to do was to kill them all. Saren was brainwashed into thinking he could actually have a few organics be spared so the next evolution of species/their own would be able to recover much faster. Then again, who would think that as the races of the galaxy would have a heads up?

In Mass Effect 3 we learned that only the most advanced races are wiped out in each Cycle. During the Prothean's Cycle for example, the ancestors of the present day races were spared. The Reaper Cycle is actually a rather warped attempt to preserve organic life in the galaxy by periodically hitting a Reset Button on civilization to prevent an all out Robot War that would completely wipe out life. This leads to the Reapers' downfall, since the people of each Cycle worked on the Crucible, the weapon that ultimately defeats them.

This is one of the taunts in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. The exact wording depends on the faction, ranging from "I promise amnesty for you and your troops" for the Americans, to "Surrender now and I'll kill you quickly" for the Cubans.

Weapon Lord has an interesting integration of this on the Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration, as sparing an opponent instead of killing them in Story mode will force you to fight them again before fighting Zarak. Sparing certain people can also net you a different Story Ending.

Jen-Tai has been known to spare her opponents in order to let them learn from their mistakes and challenge her again.

In MouseHunt's "Great Winter Hunt 2012", the player assists an embittered mouse and receives a note of thanks, including the line "When we mice finally overthrow your world and become the rightful rulers, I will be sure to make sure the other mice treat you well."

Right before the Final Battle of MOTHER, Giygas offers to spare Ninten, and only Ninten, and take him back to Giygas' world out of lingering sentimentality for Ninten's great-grandmother Maria who was Giygas' Parental Substitute when he was a baby. Ninten of course refuses, and the battle commences.

"Look, I don't do this... uh, ever. But you guys are basically like kittens stuck on a leaking lifeboat in a typhoon. Just run."

Also, upon stumbling upon the Dark Warriors trying to steal the Cosmic Keystones to defeat him and gain ultimate power, Sarda asks them if they even know how to use them. Bikke tosses his keystone at Sarda, becoming the first person in the series to land any sort of hit on him:

"You're a quick thinker and spiteful. I can respect that. You won't be killed, Bikke."

Gil, to Tarvek: "I am Gilgamesh Wulfenbach - heir to the Empire and defender of the Pax Transylvaniana - and I will crush this whole Knights of Jove/Storm King mess of yours. Ooh, don't worry - I'll let you escape. You can go skulking around with your little plans - after all, I'll always need someone to take the blame."

Castle Heterodyne eventually uses the "I will kill you quickly" line on Professor Tiktoffen, while crushing him to death.

Gil also uses a variant of this ("After this is over, you will be promoted") this to the one person who doesn't believe he's who he says he is just because of his hat.

CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable

CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

The Disciple was also spared during The Sufferer's execution- she was supposed to die, but the Executioner couldn't bring himself to kill her.

Web Original

Rule 68 of the Evil Overlord List: "I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again."

With his help I shall defeat you and then conquer the world! Ah-hahaha!Oh hey look a bird!Isn't it just the cutest little guy— I mean no! In my new world all birds will be enslaved! Especially this one! And he shall be named Mr. Tweetums, because it is very evil! Ah-hahaha! Now be gone Mr. Tweetums. I am trying to stalk my nemesis.

He also likes Joey, who will be killed last. Evil Bakura quotes the Commando exchange with Pegasus.

Stewie has said this to Peter (Your death shall be quick and painless) when he turned off the mind-numbing Teletubbies show, and again to Flappy (Good news! I've decided not to kill you!) to let him know that his pancakes were satisfactory.

In "Petarded", Peter says "When we retarded guys take over you will beg for mercy, and we will consider it".

Futurama: Bender has said he might spare Fry when he kills all humans.

Darkseid: It seems I have you to thank for my resurrection. Though your world will suffer slowly, I grant you a quick death.

In the fourth episode of The Legend of Korra, Amon ambushes Korra and has a golden opportunity to take her bending away, but doesn't take it because that would make her a martyr. Instead he gives a Breaking Speech explaining that he'll save her for last.

Though he never actually tells her, Cat R. Waul of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West planned on sparing Tanya Mousekewitz after he and his gang killed and ate every mouse in town, because he liked her singing voice.

Filmations Ghostbusters: Two kids unwittingly released a ghost bent on revenge against the family of one of them. He spared the kid as thanks.

Other

This is supposedly one of the reasons to worship Cthulhu. Upon his rising, cultists will be devoured first, sparing them what happens next.

"Then, the universe will be mine, and I'll CRUSH EVERY LIVING SOUL INTO DUST!!.... Um... except for you, Vic. You can be assistant crusher."

In The Onion`s "Our Dumb Century", this is the Nazis' response when (as the headline says) Non-white Japan allies with White Supremacist Nazi Germany in Well-Thought Out Scheme.

Dane Cook has a stand-up act about befriending the creepy loner in your office so that this happens when he inevitably snaps and goes on a rampage with a shotgun.

On Atop the Fourth Wall, because he defeated someone who was a nuisance to it the Entity does save Linkara for last and lets him run and hide after it absorbs everyone else - but it's waiting when he comes back out.

In Noob, the hacker that is trying to get people to stop playing MMORPG says he'll leave the main guild alone due to them indirectly helping him with all the disasters they cause or a negociated immunity from his business partner among them depending on the media. Another implied reason is that they frequently Go-Karting with Bowser.

Near the end of browser game Demon Thesis, Eldritch Abomination Mesmerus begins crossing over from his dimension to our world thanks in large part to the main characters being his Unwitting Pawns and states that the main characters will be killed quickly and at the same time, as that seems the most humane thing to do and he owes them that much for inadvertently helping him as they have.

Real Life

The author of A Hundred Little Hitlers (about Neo-Nazis), who is Jewish, apparently impressed one Neo-Nazi so much that he told her when he annihilated all the Jews, he'd spare her.

We can one-up that one with the story of Ernest Hess, a Jewish former soldier in Nazi Germany, who was spared from all persecution, harassment and even death by his former military subordinate... Adolf Hitler. Yes. You read that right.

Add to that the physician who looked after Hitler's mother, who also happened to be Jewish. Hitler granted him special protection out of gratitude for his work.

Nazi Germany was, in some sense, full of this trope. Many high ranking Nazi party officials, military officers, and government bureaucrats had friends and relatives who were Jewish or, more often, had recent Jewish ancestry, and in fact, quite a few had recent Jewish ancestry themselves. An entire legal process was created (described in detail in the book Hitler's Jewish Soldiers by Bryan Mark Riggs) whereby such people might apply for legal exceptions that spared them persecution—at least for the time being. Some high ranking Nazi leaders on trial at Nuremberg even used the help they had given their friends in securing these exemptions in attempt to demonstrate that they were not hardcore Nazis. For example, Goering talked about how he helped his friend General Erhard Milch, whose father was Jewish, stay in "his" Luftwaffe (incidentally, Milch was himself on trial for war crimes at Nuremberg). Doenitz used the help he had given Captain Bernhard Rogge (who would become famous for his humane and honorable conduct as the captain of the German raider Atlantis) who had a Jewish grandfather, as his defense. According to Riggs, several hundred thousand such exemptions were granted throughout the Nazi era.

Riggs notes that the degree of protection granted by these exemptions varied. At the end of the war, Milch was a field marshal and Rogge was an admiral. But many who had received the legal exemptions were still dismissed from their positions of prestige and a large number, despite some being highly decorated combat veterans, were conscripted into undignified labor units (Organization Todt) doing menial work.

This trope most likely lay at the heart of the cynical German-Japanese military alliance during World War II from at least the Nazis' perspective (but possibly the Japanese as well). A paranoid, virulently racist, white supremacist country decides to team up against other enemies with a nation they probably deem subhuman when it gets down to it. This article from Our Dumb Century puts it best.

Ironically enough, Imperial Japan had notions of racial purity and superior bloodlines which, if not as consuming as that of the Nazis, was a significant part of their cultural ideology. Basically, both countries were willing to make a deal with what they considered an inferior race for the sake of gaining power over their enemies.

Hitler also made offers of this kind to the UK during the early phase of the war, generally along the lines of "Britannia can rule the waves and Germania the earth." The UK ignored them (they didn't even acknowledge they had received them), which is essentially a diplomatic way of saying, "f*** off."

There was a persistent Urban Legend floating around in the British media in the wake of the July 2007 suicide bombings in London about a woman stopping to assist a gentleman of Middle Eastern extraction with some problem or other -a lost contact lens, directions, whatever- and being told "don't take the tube on $DATE". If this exchange ever took place in any form outside someone's especially vivid imagination, it was a subversion; none of the quoted dates ever seem to match up to a known terrorist plot, successful or otherwise, and the person dispensing this advice was almost certainly taking the piss.

A similar urban legend in the US involves someone doing something nice for a Muslim or Middle Eastern person, and being warned not to drink [insert brand of soda here] after a certain date. The story always has a strong implication of "because it'll be poisoned", but so far, there have been no mass poisonings via Coke or Pepsi.

One of the reasons Guy Fawkes' plot to blow up the parliament was that many of the plotters had friends in parliament and wanted to warm them not to go.

Brooks Brown walked out for a cigarette and spotted Eric [Harris] parking in the wrong lot. Brooks charged up to confront him about the test [he had missed earlier that day]; by the time he got there, Eric had stepped out and was pulling out a big hulking duffel bag. "What's the matter with you?" Brooks yelled. "We had a test in psychology!" Eric was calm but insistent. "It doesn't matter anymore," he said. "Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home."

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